Spirit of Conquest
by iPod Vixen
Summary: England was just the beginning.
1. Prologue

**Spirit of Conquest**

It was times lilke this that she really hated the fact that she had a phone. She fumbled about in the dark in search of the insistently ringing hunk of metal, squinting in the hopes that it would suddenly grant her night vision. It didn't. After a few more seconds of grabbing, groping, and knocking things off her nightstand, Lynn finally managed to grab the phone and flip it open. "Waddayawan."

"Where are you?"

Lynn sat up and pressed the heel of her palm to her left eye as she stifled a yawn. "Chicago. Who - "

"It's Brady. What the fuck are you doing in Chicago?"

She ignored that question to ask a more important one of her own. "Brady, why the hell are you calling me at three in the morning?"

"Look, this is important, okay? Listen, I'm retired, yeah?"

"Yeah, for your leg." She slid out of bed and stretched, padding silently out of the room in search of the kitchen. She really needed something to wake her up, like a cup of coffee or a giant can of red bull. Ah, fuck it - anything with a decent amount of caffeine would work. "Wow, that really was an important message! Definitely important enough to wake me up at fucking three A.M."

"Lynn, shut the fuck up and listen." Brady's voice was serious, far more serious than she'd ever heard it. "I'm a veteran, right? No longer on active duty due. Officially out of the army. The only ties I've got to it are my paychecks. So explain to me why I just got a letter drafting me back in and ordering me to come to the base in France."

Lynn frowned as she flipped the switch on the small water cooker and turned around to reach for the cappuccino powder. "What? That can't be right. There must've been a mistake."

"That's what I thought. I called Jackson, but he said everybody in the whole damn system is being redrafted and sent to the French base. Nobody's left behind this time. The retirees are redrafted, and even the trainees are going."

"Whoa..." Lynn frowned, reaching for the water cooker as it beeped and pouring the steaming water into a blue mug. She easily ignored the "Father Time Can Really Kick the Shit Out of You" writing on the side; after three years of drinking out of the same mug, the words no longer amused her as they once had. "Everybody? Seriously everybody? How about Hasselfeld?"

"Hasselfeld, Errol, Glass...everybody."

She had just lifted her mug to take a sip of the hot cappuccino, but at his words, she set it back down with a soft 'clink'. "Wow. This must be really serious."

"No shit."

"How soon should I expect my letter?"

Brady's response was simple. "Check your letterbox."

"What?" She laughed at the very thought, again lifting the mug to her lips. "I checked the mail yesterday. There was stuff for mother, stuff for Steve...nothing for me."

"Check your letterbox."

"Brady, there's no way I'm gonna find new mail at three A.M."

"Lynn..."

"Fine, fine. If it'll shut you up, I'll go look." She set the mug down and padded down the hall again, flicking on the light in the entryway of her mother's home. Sure enough, a letter that certainly hadn't been there a few hours ago was lying innocently on the hardwood floor. She stared at it for a few moments before Brady's voice jerked her back to reality.

"Hey, Lynn, you still there?"

"Uh...yeah. Yeah, I'm still here."

"You found one, didn't you?"

She swore under her breath at the smug tone of his voice but forced herself to calm down enough to answer. "Yeah. I found one."

"Open it."

Lynn rolled her eyes as she picked up the letter and slit it open with her thumbnail. She tugged the letter out and shook it lightly to remove the creases, then began to read. With each line, her expression grew more and more somber. Finally, she cleared her throat to indicate she'd finished. "Sounds bad."

"Yeah."

"Where are you, Brady?"

"Berlin."

"Don't go anywhere. I'll grab the first plane outta here and meet you there, got it?" Without awaiting his reply, she flipped the phone shut and walked back to her bedroom, her expression thoughtfully grim.

So...everybody was being drafted and sent to the base in France... why not England? If this was as important a she thought it was - and it was clearly important, otherwise they wouldn't be recalling so many people - then why didn't they just send everybody to England? What had happened in her three days of absence that was so intense that every body in the damned RAF had to drop everything and run?

She frowned thoughtfully as she pulled her duffel bag out of the closet and began throwing her things into it. She didn't have a lot of time; if they needed her badly enough to hunt her down and deliver her that letter in the middle of the night, then she needed to get there as quickly as possible. There had to be a reason behind all this.

"Lynn?" Lynn turned around to see Bryan squinting at her in the light of her bedside lamp. "Lynn, what's going on? What are you doing?" He stepped closer, eyes on her duffel bag. "You're packing? Why? Where are you going?"

"Read this." She pointed at the letter she'd dropped at the foot of the bed. He wouldn't understand - she knew he wouldn't, because she certainly didn't - but it was the only way to explain to him why she had to leave.


	2. Chapter 1

Civil unrest. That was what they'd called it. Major Simmons hadn't been very clear – understandable, since he himself hadn't been told much. What he had said, though, made sense. There was civil unrest in Great Britain. It was threatening to destroy what was left of the island. Their job was to go in and regain control – at any cost.

_At any cost_.

That was what bothered her as she sat in the helicopter, her grip rhythmically tightening and loosening, on her rifle. Those words, those three little words, could mean the end of the road for hundreds of thousands of people. They were ordered to shoot to kill. Not to maim, not to scare – but to kill. That meant it was serious – that it was a lot worse than they were letting on.

Lynn shifted uncomfortably in the seat, glancing at the soldiers beside her. They all looked alike – oh sure, their facial features were different, but it was the mask of silent, thoughtful terror on every face that made distinguishing features seem unimportant. There was a reason why every soldier was being called out of retirement or furlough – hell, she'd even seen a few that had most definitely been on maternity leave. That made no difference. They were in the Royal Air Force. They'd vowed to protect the country, to give their lives for it if that was what it took.

She didn't doubt that many of them were wishing they could take back that oath.

The whirr of the helicopter blades thundered in her ears like the erratic beating of a thousand hearts, pounding with fear and adrenaline. They were getting closer to London now – it had been a pretty long flight so far, which meant it surely had to end soon.

"Look." A hushed voice, hoarse from the prolonged lack of use, broke the tense silence. Lynn turned to see the youngest of the group pointing at something beyond the windshield. "Smoke – London's burning."

Like several mechanical robots, the other soldiers turned to stare out the windshield. He was right – towers of smoke rose from the city. Lynn could see other choppers already landing on various buildings, their passengers scattering from the chopper to take their positions on the roofs and scuttle down the fire escape ladders. A jolt from the helicopter they were on told her it was time. She stood, synchronized with the others, to leap from the chopper. She darted to the corner of the roof, dropping to one knee and putting the rifle to her shoulder. God, she didn't want to do this… but she wanted a court martial even less. She adjusted the scope and pressed one eye to it. What she saw was _not_ what she expected.

Every intersection had a military barrier; people were scrambling over them frantically, easily overpowering the soldiers and trampling them in their desperation. Barrier after barrier was being overrun. Her radio was already crackling, filled with orders and pleas for help. However, she was ignoring them as she moved her sights farther south. Hordes of people were swarming the streets, chasing the fleeing mobs. The soldiers valiantly tried to uphold the barriers, but they were quickly crushed by the advancing human wall.

"Why aren't you firing?" Lynn glanced over her shoulder to the sniper on the adjacent corner of the roof, who was staring at her. "What's wrong with you? Shoot! That's an order!"

Without thinking, she turned around, took aim, and fired. The reverberations of the rifle in her hands immediately put her at ease, helping her relax and feel more…well, normal. She was on a roof, shooting at – and probably killing – people. But to her, they were no longer people. They were nameless, faceless blobs – the source of unrest that was destroying the nation that she had sworn to uphold and protect – and they had to be stopped.

At any cost.


End file.
